2016 NEWSLETTER

Welcome to the 2016 version of the MU History Department’s newsletter. This is the twelfth edition since I became chair in 2004; since then, we’ve had a massive change in faculty staffing (eight of our current faculty do not appear on the picture in that first newsletter); hundreds of students have passed through our classrooms; the College of Arts and Sciences has had five deans and the university has had four provosts; and we’ve moved into our new digs in the re-born Sensenbrenner Hall. The new building smell has pretty much worn off, but we’re still enjoying our sunny and comfortable, opposite-of-Coughlin Hall offices.

This newsletter is chock-full of news from the 2015-2016 academic year, including Peter Staudenmaier earning tenure, Alison Efford being named the College of A & S’s “Teacher of the Year,” and Julius Ruff beginning his three-year “phase-out” to retirement. This was a particularly busy year for public lectures and other programming, and our graduate students had an especially fruitful year presenting their research at professional conferences and obtaining post-graduate employment!

This year we’re asking you to help us plan our future by taking a survey—especially those alumni who received their BAs from Marquette. We will use this information to prepare for an external review in the fall and to make plans to offset the loss in history majors that we, along with virtually every other university in the United States, have experienced in the last few years. Please click here to learn more and to find the link to the survey.

Finally, in case you’ve missed it, please take a look at the department’s blog, Historians@Work. Over the last year-and-a-half over 6000 people have read the twenty-nine posts written by faculty members, graduate students, former graduate students, and friends of the department. They cover a wide range of topics (a Marquette University High School graduate in the Civil War, education in the Ancient World, the commemoration of the Easter Rising in Dublin, the experiences of our PhD students as they have gone out into the historical profession.

That’s all for now—thanks for checking out the newsletter and let us know how you’re doing. Don’t hesitate to write me at james.marten@marquette.edu with questions about the department or to share news for next year’s newsletter!